Julie Maroh’s first book, Blue Is the Warmest Color, was a graphic novel phenomenon; it was a New York Timesbestseller and the controversial film adaptation by French director Abdellatif Kechiche won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. Maroh’s latest book, Body Music, marks her return to the kind of soft, warm palette and impressionistic sensibility that made her debut book so sensational.
Set in the languid, European-like neighborhoods of Montreal, Body Music is a beautiful and moving meditation on love and desire as expressed in their many different forms—between women, men, and gender non-conformists alike, all varying in age and race. In twenty separate vignettes, Maroh explores the drama inherent in relationships at different stages: the electricity of initial attraction, the elation of falling in love, the trauma of breaking up, the sweet comfort of a long-standing romance.
Anyone who’s ever been in a relationship will see themselves in these intimate stories tinged with raw emotion. Body Music is an exhilarating and passionate graphic novel about what it means to fall in love, and what it means to be alive.
Buy it at your Local Comic Shop!
A heartfelt, positive, and erotic look at one woman's adventure in love and sex, as a new generation learns to make their own rules and follow their own hearts aboard an orbiting space station.
Rigo is a young woman of her time: specifically, the time just after the collapse of Earth. After living her whole life on a small space station orbiting the planet, the cultural norms and rules of her Californian parents are just history to her. In between work shifts at the station air farm, Rigo explores her own desires, developing openly polyamorous relationships with her friends and crewmates. When she starts to feel one of those relationships change, however, Rigo must balance her new feelings with the stability of her other relationships, as well as the hard-earned camaraderie of a small crew floating in the vastness of space. But, as the ship motto goes, "Honesty keeps us alive."
A bisexual, polyamorous love story for the modern era. Hazel is already in a happy relationship when she meets Argent, a dominatrix who’s sweet and tender outside of the bedroom. Sugar Town is a fun, colorful comic about a young woman’s journey through the delights and disappointments of multiple lovers.
Sugartown is, I believe intentionally, hard to categorize. The main character, Hazel, is in an open relationship with Gregor. She's in Portland, OR for the summer, while Gregor is back home in NYC. She meets a super-cute domme, Argent, at a club one night, and the two strike up a friendship/relationship.
The book explores themes of jealousy, long-distance relationships, communication, and queer friendship, but none in depth. The art is super cute, but the writing is a little stilted, almost as if the creator was trying to say a lot in not a lot of pages. I've listed it as "definitely a romance," since Hazel and Argent are in a relationship by the end of the book, with I-Love-Yous and so on. I believe that Hazel's relationship with Gregor also deepens and evolves throughout the book. As for sexiness, there's some mild nudity and sexual situations, but that's it. I gave it an R simply for a flogging scene, otherwise it'd be PG-13.
The entire thing is broken up into four mini-issues, each around 15 pages. The entire book is 52 pages, including title and so on. This wouldn't be a problem, if not for the fact that the book ends up at $10. I understand that indie comics are most costly to produce, but the insides weren't oustanding enough for me to recommend it to my readers at that price. If you find it on sale, go right ahead!
Love in Panels is two blogs, each with their own searchable database. One blog covers comics with queer and romantic elements, the other is dedicated to romance novels. We post news, reviews, and lots of other fun stuff!